Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Idea, and Reliance Jio have signed equipment deals with Nokia and Ericsson to support their network expansions.
Major telecom players that dominate the Indian market such as – Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel, and Vodafone Idea – have recently signed major equipment deals with Nokia and Ericsson to support their network expansions. These contracts, worth billions of dollars, are reportedly 30-40 percent cheaper than what offered in the global market. Vodafone Idea’s recent equipment agreement, estimated around Rs 30,000 crore was a win for the company and its vendors, specially as most advanced countries have already accomplished the deployment of their 5G networks.
An analysis conducted by Mason suggests that India’s large scale network deployment paves the way for the country to secure roughly a 40 percent decrease in equipment costs. Ashwinder Sethi from the firm said that prices for equipment in India and neighbouring China are lower than other parts of the world like Europe and North America. He also pointed out that maintaining revenue in growing markets like India is key for suppliers like Nokia and Ericsson.
Notably, India ranks as the world’s second-largest telecom market after China with 1.21 billion telecom users. Even the prices of equipment here are lower, the market is still highly valuable to international telecom vendors.
This year, companies like Ericsson, Nokia, and Samsung witnessed slower growth in North America and Europe due to reduced spending by network providers. On a contrary India performed well, with Ericsson expecting stable contributions to its revenue from India for the next few years.
Nokia on the other hand sees an opportunity for expanding both 4G and 5G in the country. Despite the rising popularity and subscriber base of 5G, there’s still about 5-7 percent of the populace left unconnected. This glaring figure suggests untapped potential and prospective growth within this sector.